What If
by Sabri10224
Summary: Cloud wants to change Aeris's fate, and does so. Then again... maybe it's best to let her go if it's her time...if not, they'll face the biggest challenge of any one of their lives...
1. Night Sky

The Highwind landed.  
  
Cloud disembarked, alone. He started walking.  
  
Cloud stood at the edge of the pool. The Ancient City glowed as the Lifestream's energy flew through its bloodstream, giving one the feeling of a presence around them at times. Cloud looked in the pool, down into the midnight blue darkness, and spotting a ribbon of pale pink waving.  
  
"Aeris."  
  
He knelt at the pool's edge, focusing on the ribbon. He stared harder into the almost endless darkness, to see reddish-brown strands moving with it.  
  
"Aeris. I know you are gone. I sometimes wonder if I could do anything to bring you back. I lay at night thinking. of you."  
  
Cloud turned over on his back and lay by the pool, looking up into the star- studded sky, littered with growing storm clouds.  
  
"I love Tifa and all. but you were beyond that kind of love. love for a friend. as if they were family."  
  
He saw a shooting star. He closed his eyes and made a wish.  
  
"I miss the little things that we had. I miss the fun we had at the Gold Saucer. I miss the walks though the fields. I miss your house, your room, your phoenix doll on your bed. I miss your antics. I miss your ideas. Your thoughts! I miss."  
  
His eyes widened. He stood up.  
  
*Splash*  
  
---  
  
Thunder and lightning blasted outside as Tifa, Barret, and Cid sat inside Tifa's room in Nibelheim.  
  
"What a night!"  
  
"Do you have the slightest idea where Cloud is?"  
  
"You should know! You let him borrow the Highwind!"  
  
Cid frowned. "So what, Barret? It's not like he's gonna wreck it!"  
  
Tifa stood up. "Stop it, you two."  
  
*BOOM*  
  
The door flew open and there stood Cloud. with Aeris in his arms.  
  
"What the heck are you doing, Cloud!?" Barret blew up.  
  
Tifa screamed. "That's so wrong! Let her rest in peace!"  
  
"Give it up, Cloud!!!" Cid yelled.  
  
"Wrong," Cloud simply said.  
  
The room fell silent to nothing but the sound of the storm outside.  
  
"What?" Tifa almost whispered.  
  
Cloud gently set Aeris down on Tifa's bed. He uncorked a bottle and poured the glittery dust onto her torso. Everyone watched as it spread across her body and, in a flash, it absorbed into her body.  
  
"It's so obvious. Why didn't we think of it before." Cloud muttered.  
  
Cid quietly asked, "Think of what?"  
  
Cloud looked up. "Phoenix Down."  
  
Aeris's eyes opened. 


	2. Tifa's Journal

I was writing in my journal before it happened.  
  
I could hear Cid and Barret arguing in the background as I wrote. Staring back at freshly written words, I read.  
  
--With a simple action, a world can change.  
  
With a simple word, a life can change.  
  
What action would do such a thing?  
  
What word would do such a thing?  
  
The answers are the same.  
  
What is this answer? --  
  
I was about to make the last characters with my pen as it happened.  
  
Now that her eyes are open, and I see Cloud staring back into them, I know the answer now more than ever.  
  
Love.  
  
Cloud loves Aeris. Not in THAT way. but in such a way that words can only begin to describe it. Perhaps I could try.  
  
Like feathers on the back of a gust of wind, like words strung together that say nothing but mean everything, like the swirl of a galaxy that holds the meaning of life, like the first gasp of breath from a newborn child.  
  
That kind of love. So great, even death cannot stop it.  
  
I came up behind Cloud and grasped his hand. Aeris's eyes were open, and, with a shudder, she took her first breath.  
  
I started crying. I knew what that meant. I had that same kind of love for her. And as I saw the look in Barret and Cid's eyes, I knew that they did as well.  
  
I knelt by the bed, now grasping her hand. "Aeris?"  
  
She just laid there and looked blankly at me as if I wasn't there.  
  
"Aeris. it's me, Tifa. You know me! Come on."  
  
"I knew it." Cid whispered.  
  
"What?" I looked back.  
  
"She's been gone too long. her thoughts and feelings, in other words, her mind, has left her, but her spirit hasn't, that's why she came back."  
  
I stared at him in horror. "So she's without.her soul?"  
  
"Sort of. but since her spirit is still there. there's hope."  
  
"What can we do?"  
  
"It's like amnesia crossed with a coma. We talk to her. but she won't respond, until.she returns."  
  
"She WILL come back.right?"  
  
"I read about this in a book in Shinra Library. but it is rare."  
  
"How rare?"  
  
He gave me a grave look.  
  
"It has been reported to happen.once."  
  
"So she might NEVER come back!? She'll just be this empty.thing for what's left of her life? No memories, no thoughts, no feelings, no life worth living?!"  
  
Cid looked down. "This is why nobody uses Phoenix Downs to revive the dead, only the near-dead. But we have to remember, no matter how little, there is still hope."  
  
I looked back at Aeris. She had no thoughts. No feelings. She was Aeris, but only an empty shell. I started to get upset. This was too overwhelming. She was here, but.not.here. I was glad she couldn't be afraid, but a part of me wanted her to be. At least that fear would be Aeris.  
  
"God, I can't take this!" Barret ran downstairs.  
  
Cid looked at me. "I'll get him."  
  
I looked at Cloud. He was looking at Aeris in such a way that it reminded me of what he looked like when we lost her.  
  
"She's still.gone."  
  
I said, "There's still hope though." "I thought, when I was diving deep into that pool, chasing after that waving pink ribbon, that when I came back here, so would Aeris. I thought that I would hear her voice, and know that she was alright.I thought that I could change our future. and that I could grasp the fact that our love for Aeris could reverse a blow of Septhroth's sword."  
  
"Cloud."  
  
I turned him towards me, and had him look straight into my eyes.  
  
"There is still hope."  
  
He smiled. "There is still hope." 


	3. Cid's Search

I sat there next to her, looking into her empty eyes.  
  
Damn it all.  
  
I was alone in the room with Aeris. She was lying on the bed, still staring at the ceiling silently, while I just sat there.  
  
I went back to reading a book that I had recently borrowed from a friend.  
  
"SUBJECT A showed following symptoms; Memory loss Loss of speech Physical disablement  
  
SUBJECT B and C showed same symptoms.  
  
Following were administered; Medications: REMEDY SOFT POTION (Hi and X) Treatments: Physical Therapy  
  
SUBJECT B was successful. This may be due to the one difference in between the ca."  
  
The rest of the page was torn off.  
  
I threw the book across the room swearing. I couldn't believe my luck. Was Aeris doomed to stay like this forever?  
  
Aeris looked at me. Her once green eyes with gray replacing it stared at me as if they were waiting for something.  
  
I fell apart. Those eyes turned me to my breaking point. I sank down into the plush leather chair, and cried. YES, me, a grown man crying. You would too if you saw her.  
  
I looked up from my hands, looking at the floor. My eyes were blurred, but I still saw it. A highlighted portion in the book. I picked up the book and continued reading.  
  
SUBJECT A and SUBJECT B have identical brainwaves, while SUBJECT C is different. The brainwaves react to the treatments, getting increasingly violent as treatment is administered. Due to these circumstances, SUBJECT C, the only female, might have recovered if treatment was left unadministered.  
  
Great. A variable. Just what we need.  
  
A knock came at the door. 


End file.
